Learning to Create the Perfect Cup of Coffee
Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Tristan Walach, also known as Ant, teaches people how to make coffee in San Francisco.
By MATT RICHTEL
Published: December 31, 2012
Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Chris Baca trains a new employee how to steam milk properly at Verve in Santa Cruz.
Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Mr. Baca presents a coffee drink he crafted at Verve.
TRISTAN WALACH has a tattoo of the famous Las Vegas welcome sign on his
neck. He goes by the name Ant. He teaches people how to make coffee, professionally.
I have come to learn from him.
“People like you are the best to train,” he says, sizing me up. “You
don’t have bad habits or preconceived notions. You’re a blank slate.”
We’re at Sightglass, a cafe
near downtown San Francisco with a huge coffee roaster near the front
door. But Ant and I are tucked away upstairs, cordoned behind a chain
and a sign: “Training in Session.”
Such training centers are increasingly common, and not just at cafes: there are certification classes for baristas and even Camp Pull A-Shot,
a four-day, three-night event. And there are also a growing number of
regional and national “throwdowns” to find the most technically
proficient, graceful makers of the best-tasting coffee drinks.
Am I skeptical? Well, making coffee, even espresso, roughly entails
pouring or pushing water through coffee. Sometimes by flicking a switch
or pushing a button. Sure, Ant, you can up my coffee game, and then I’ll
spend three days at Camp Let’s Make Oatmeal.
And, hey, I’m not precisely a blank slate. Without any training, I brew a
very solid morning latte. And it’s superior to Starbucks, I brag to my
wife, using only a $100 espresso maker and beans from a local cafe.
“How hard can coffee be? It’s an attitude we’re constantly
encountering,” noted Ellie Matuszak, director of professional
development for the Specialty Coffee Association of America, a trade group with thousands of company members and 1,200 people in its growing Barista Guild.
Ant, 34, whose title is director of education, says coffee requires a
deft touch. “It’s the most complicated beverage we consume,” he said.
The training center at Sightglass includes a counter with several
grinders, an industrial-strength espresso machine, a scale, coffee
tampers and other paraphernalia. On a nearby island of reclaimed blond
wood are 10 handleless cups, organized in five pairs, each half full of
light-brown beans.
But first, we are going to watch Ant’s PowerPoint presentation about
where the best beans come from and how they are picked. There is also a
slide titled “The Origin Myth.” It’s folklore, a big-bang theory of the
discovery of coffee by a goat herder in Ethiopia.
Then it’s time to commence cupping.
This entails smelling the contents of the white cups — beans from Kenya,
Costa Rica, Ethiopia, El Salvador and Guatemala. I cannot detect much
difference.
Ant then introduces me to the La Marzocco Linea,
an espresso maker that runs $8,000 to $10,000. (The really expensive
machines, the La Marzocco Strada and the Slayer, are downstairs for the
actual baristas.) To its left is a $1,500 Mazzer Major grinder. On top
is a button. My job is to push that button, dispensing precisely 19.5
grams of coffee into the filter.
I’m supposed to give the coffee a little sift to even it out, then pack
it down with the tamper.
Ant shows me how to create about 35 pounds of
pressure, a give-or-take amount achieved by bending my knees for
leverage and pushing on the tamper until the coffee pushes back.
This step is crucial, Ant says, because otherwise water flows unevenly
through the coffee, creating unwanted channels. I press another button,
to run the water through the coffee. We press a timer to make sure I
leave the water flowing for 25 seconds. Brown and tan espresso flows
into the demitasse, which Ant calls the “vessel.”
Ant sips. “It’s not terribly offensive.”
I sip. It is, actually, terribly offensive. Sour and bitter. Ant makes a
cup using the same steps.
It has a hint of sweetness, just shy of
floral, no aftertaste. I make another. Just as bad as my first. Maybe I
need milk.
Ant explains how to steam the milk. In brief: position the steam wand
just below the milk’s surface until the milk swirls in a circular motion
and puffs up as it absorbs the steam, then drop the wand lower until
the milk reaches 135 degrees, as verified by a thermometer. There’s a
sweet spot between milk and temperature, the point at which the sugars
cook and the milk becomes sweeter, but before the sugars burn.
I try a few times. I make water-thin milk, poured over bitter shots.
Finally, I get the milk consistency right, like wet paint. I try a
little latte art. It looks like mating amoebas.
Ant offers wisdom: “The difference between a good barista and a great
one is the great barista has the courage to toss a shot.” We toss my
amoebas in the sink.
I have a second chance coming. I tell Ant that I’m getting more training with Chris Baca at Verve, a cafe and roaster in Santa Cruz. His eyes light up. “He’s great! I trained with him,” he says.
But first, I try to put some of my training to work at home the next
morning. I throw out the first three shots. Something is wrong. I was
making excellent espresso just the day before. I have actually gotten
worse.
MR. BACA, 32, planned to be a high school history teacher. But he
dropped out of college and took a job at a cafe in Modesto. He developed
a love affair with coffee, moved to San Francisco to work for a trendy
cafe called Ritual, then started competing in 2006. In 2010, he finished second out of 50 competitors in the United States Barista Championship. In the freestyle competition, he made a crème anglaise espresso drink, cherry infused with a citrus garnish.
“I know, this all seems like ‘Best in Show,’ ” says Ryan O’Donovan, an
owner of Verve, referring to the faux documentary about dog shows. “It
seems ridiculous. We’re trying to make it less ridiculous.”
Verve, where Mr. Baca is director of education, devotes 1,500 square
feet to training. It’s part of what the cafe considers the “third wave”
of the coffee movement — the first being campfire and drip coffee, the
second the Starbucks revolution and the next understanding and evoking
the complexity of coffee. Training, Mr. O’Donovan says, “is the nucleus
of what we do.”
I show Mr. Baca what I’ve learned. He calls my first shot dry. He is being kind.
Mr. Baca asked me to bring my usual brand of coffee and makes a shot
with it. It is not good. Lesson No. 1: coffee matters. Just because the
bag says “fair trade” or “locally roasted” does not mean the
highest-grade beans have been selected and put through meticulous
roasting. We toss my $13-a-pound coffee in the trash. Then Mr. Baca
provides a math lesson.
The essence of good espresso, of good coffee in general, revolves around
three numbers: the amount of quality dry coffee used, the amount of
time water flows through it and the amount of coffee that comes out the
other end. When the ratio is right, the process extracts the best
flavor. If it is wrong, the good flavor never surfaces or is watered
down. A mistake in seconds or grams, I am coming to learn, is the
difference between something wonderful and awful.
Mr. Baca explains that you have to experiment to find just the right
balance of these three elements for each coffee machine and coffee
grind, and then replicate them. He has tested the machinery at
Sightglass and determined that we want to use 17 grams of high-end
coffee and run water for 25 seconds to yield about 30 grams of coffee.
Again, this seems simple, given that the grinder is preset to deliver
the grams I want, and I can verify using the scale. All I have to do is
press buttons. My first shot tastes foul. But Mr. Baca calls my second
“bright and snappy.”
He shows me how to paint with steamed milk: hold the decanter six inches
from the cup, pour a medium-sized stream at a constant rate and when
the cup is half filled, lower the decanter close to the cup. When the
cup is nearly full, wriggle your hand quickly to create a shape that
will make the foam blossom out. Finish with a flourish by drawing a bit
of milk through the middle of the design. After a few tries, I’m able to
make something that looks like a pine tree, though I was aiming for a
heart.
Great, I am improving. But this is impractical. I buy my coffee preground. I don’t own a scale.
“A $10 scale is the best investment you can make for your coffee game,”
Mr. Baca says. And because coffee density and brewing time are so
significant, he says, a grinder is not far behind. Some experts say
grinding your beans fresh is the most important priority.
Reality check: I’m trying to make it through chaotic mornings at home
with a clamoring family. Mr. O’Donovan is amused. Why, he asks, would I
make espresso in the morning, let alone latte?
“I make drip coffee,” Mr. O’Donovan explains. Mr. Baca does, too. That’s
because making a good espresso requires preparation and cleanup. Even
when it all goes right, it takes time. Like making a good meal.
“Coffee isn’t just coffee,” Mr. O’Donovan says.
It’s “just like anything else,” Mr. Baca chimes in.
I instantly take his meaning: Coffee — what I assumed was just a simple,
necessary thing to start my day — is something more than that. It may
not require certification but it does require more attention than I
realized.
With my cram session at an end, Mr. O’Donovan leaves me with a laugh and
a warning: “You’re heading down the rabbit hole.”
In the ensuing days, I start using the timer on the microwave to make
sure I’m pulling my espresso shots for 25 seconds. I troll the Internet
for counsel on what might be a next-step espresso maker. But even with
my old gear and a bit of leftover coffee from Sightglass, my shots have
gotten discernibly better, and occasionally good.
I place an order for coffee from Verve. When two different roasts arrive
and I make a show of my excitement, my wife rolls her eyes. She
challenges whether I can even tell the difference between the new coffee
and two other blends I used to swear by. So we do a blind smell test.
I nail it. My wife seems surprised; who is this new discerning creature?
Just getting started, I tell her. Wait until you see what we can do
with milk.
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